244 SEXUAL SELECTION : MAMMALS. Part II, 



sheds his horns during the winter, it is very improbable 

 that they can be of any special service to the female at 

 this season, which includes the larger j)ro23ortion of the 

 time during which she bears horns. Nor is it probable 

 that she can have inherited horns from some ancient 

 progenitor of the whole family of deer, for, from the fact 

 of the males alone of so many species in all quarters of 

 the globe possessing horns, we may conclude that this 

 was the primordial character of the group. Hence it 

 appears that horns must have been transferred from the 

 male to the female at a period subsequent to the diver- 

 gence of the various species from a common stock ; but 

 that this w^as not effected for the sake of giving her any 

 special advantage.^ 



We know that the horns are developed at a most 

 unusually early age in the reindeer ; but what the cause 

 of this may have been is not known. The effect, how- 

 ever, has apparently been the transference of the horns 

 to both sexes. It is intelligible on the hypothesis of 

 pangenesis, that a very slight change in the constitution 

 of the male, either in the tissues of the forehead or in 

 the gemmules of the horns, might lead to their early 

 development ; and as the young of both sexes have 

 nearly the same constitution before the period of repro- 

 duction, the horns, if developed at an early age in the 

 male, would tend to be developed equally in both sexes. 

 In support of this view, we should bear in mind that the 

 horns are always transmitted through the female, and 

 that she has a latent capacity for their development, as 

 we see in old or diseased females.^ Moreover the females 



* On the structure and shedding of the horns of the reindeer, Hoff- 

 berg, ' Amoenitates Acad.' vol. iv. 1788, p. 149. See Eichardsou, ' Fauna 

 Bor. Americana,' p. 241, in regard to the American variety or species; 

 also Major W. Koss King, ' The Sportsman in Canada,' 1866, p. 80. 



^ Isidore Geoffioy St.-Hilaire, ' Essais de Zoolog. Ge'ne'ralc,' 1841, 

 p. 513. Other masculine characters, besides the horns, are sometimes 



